Decide how you are going to handle postage and packaging

Uploading your stock with its text and visual content is also relatively straightforward.

What about delivery charges?

Consider the following scenarios. What would you do?

(i) Shipping for orders with big and small items combined

A customer places an order for small piece of stationery, as well as a large, bulky wardrobe (once in a lifetime find, they say!).

You have a blanket £4.95 delivery charge, which is fine for the stationery, but not the wardrobe; you would need a courier - more expensive.

(ii) Small but heavy items

You get an order notification for a relatively small, but heavy, metal ornament. Normally, something of that size would easily be covered by the standard delivery charge, but not in this case, because of its usually high weight

Typically, your online shop platform will give you a number of options for delivery, whether by size, weight or a flat fee.

Many online shops mitigate against the complexities by setting a flat delivery charge on all orders up to a particular amount.

This covers against the complexities on smaller orders, incentivises customers to spend more and allows them to absorb costs on higher value orders.